


Wrapped (Up)

by colepaldigirl



Category: British Actor RPF, Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M, RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 05:33:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8237854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colepaldigirl/pseuds/colepaldigirl
Summary: Sequel to the fluffy fic (Un)Wrapped where Jenna wakes up in a hotel with Peter. This time Peter is the one waking up confused only to remember what happened the night before and what that means for the future.There is some angst.... it snuck in.





	

Wrapped (Up)

 

The sheets smelt unfamiliar but still oddly homely, that was the first thing he noticed. When he opened his eyes he discovered that they were pink cotton, that was the second. Pink sheets? Why was he lying face down on pink sheets? Why was he lying face down _diagonally_ across the bed on pink sheets?

And why was he still wearing his shirt?

Peter lifted his head.

‘Ahh,’ he squeezed his eyes shut.  That was a bad idea. His head returned to the sheets and he lay for a moment trying to get control of the throbbing pain behind his eyes. No, it wasn’t going away, so he tried slowly rolling over onto his back and waiting in that position instead.

Still sore.

This felt like…

A rattle at the door. Oh there was a door. He was in a room he didn’t recognise with pink sheets and painfully floral wallpaper and a rattling door.

Which was very noisy. Very noisy indeed. He covered his eyes.

This had to be a…

The door finally burst open and almost immediately slammed shut again. Peter jumped and actively groaned as the pain shot through his head.

‘Hangover?’ Jenna’s voice came from above him. Peter peered through his fingers.

‘Um… feels like one yes…’ he watched as she rolled her eyes and tutted and he felt suddenly defensive. ‘You can’t speak young lady, the state of you last week.’

‘The state of me? Oh you _far_ outstripped me, Peter, you just can’t remember anything about it.’ She sounded so angry he immediately felt his anxiety rise.

Slowly he inched himself into a sitting position.  ‘You’re just saying that,’ he said running his hands through his hair. They came away sticky. ‘Was I wearing gel?’

‘Yes.’

‘I haven’t gelled my hair in years.’

‘You didn’t to start with but by the end of the night you were trying to ‘get down with the kids’ and borrowed their hair product.’

Peter glanced sideways at her in concern, ‘seriously?’ he whispered.

‘That’s just the start of it,’ Jenna folded her arms and looked sternly down at him, ‘You, you are a disgrace. An idiot. A humiliation. I cannot believe you…’ she looked away, eyes burning with unshed tears.

‘Jenna? What’s wrong? What did I do?’

She just shook her head, ‘I don’t even know what to say to you.’

Peter stared at her motionless for a moment trying to ascertain what she was actually thinking, but unfortunately his head was far too fuzzy for that so he had to relent and ask.

‘Jenna are you winding me up, or are you actually angry with me for doing… whatever I did?’ He saw her foot tap the pink floral carpet beneath it.

‘Don’t you remember _anything_?’ she said finally looking at him again, arms still wrapped around herself.

‘I remember getting here, checking in, having dinner with you and your producer, some of the crew….’ The memories grew a little darker with each pronouncement.

‘And?’ she prompted.

‘And…’ he wracked his brains but came up with nothing. God he was thirsty. He glanced around the room and spotted what could only be the door to the ensuite. Jenna watched as he heaved himself of the bed and half staggered into the bathroom. Was he still drunk?

‘Need me to hold your horribly gelled hair?’ she called sarcastically.

‘Shut up,’ he found a glass and filled it with water, half staggered back again and sat heavily on the bed to drink it. Jenna watched him impatiently. ‘What?’ he asked.

‘ _And_?’ she emphasised continuing where he left off.

‘We were having a few drinks, I met some more of the cast…’ he said, trying to retrace his steps. Jenna raised one eyebrow. ‘Oh,’ he said and an image flickered briefly through his memory. ‘The cast…’

‘The cast,’ Jenna said, ‘The cast who initially were delighted to welcome you to our wrap party. Who had so many questions for Doctor Who, who all wanted selfies and autographs, even Rufus who is arguably more famous than you and more of a gentleman!’

Well that stung. He’d always seen himself as a gentleman especially where Jenna was concerned. But…

‘Ah…’ he could feel the shame creeping over him even before he had fully remembered his antics.

‘But of course you were knocking back red wine like there’s no tomorrow,’ Jenna continued, ‘At first I thought what the hell got into you? I’ve never seen you like that. You thought I was bad last week after that fight I had with Tom but last night you were overboard… and then it made sense…’

Wham. There it was, flooding back. Peter froze for a moment as the images rushed through his head, each with an emotion attached and a good dollop of shame. He felt himself go red and then a moment later pale.

‘Oh… God…’ he murmured.

Jenna’s voice, still tense and accusing, ‘Remembered have you?’

Oh yes. Yes, he definitely had.

 

How things change in a week. She’d asked him if he wanted to come to the party, and he, still floating on endorphins and filled with the excitement of an added level to their relationship, had automatically said yes. Why wouldn’t he want to see Jenna again? The morning they had shared together in bed had turned out to be one of the most memorable of his life, which was ironic given the chunks of the evening before that Jenna couldn’t recall. She’d grinned at him and kissed him, and worked him into a state where nothing else mattered. Just the taste of her lips and a date fixed to be reunited once again.

And then he went home to London. The same afternoon. Filming over, downtime scheduled, wife waiting for him. It hit him then, just how complex this situation actually was. Elaine was making him dinner, chattering about whatever it was she had been doing while he was away, and his mind wasn’t even in the room. There was the woman he had loved for thirty years welcoming him home, and he was thinking of another woman half his age who he had slept with that morning. Who he had arranged to see again in a week, primarily for the purposes of more clandestine sex.

He couldn’t do it. The guilt landed heavy in his guts and the nausea swept over him so hard he actually thought he might be sick. Elaine had seen it too, his sudden pallor and come over to where he was sitting at the kitchen table, concerned, kind, laying a hand on his forehead. She asked if he was OK and he could hardly get the words out for fear he might vomit or worse blurt out the truth so he said something about being exhausted and crawled to bed early.

He called Jenna the next day when Elaine was out, explained he couldn’t do it, and to his surprise she had reassured him.  She’d been thinking too. They made a promise to each other and she told him to come up anyway, as her friend, her buddy, just like always. Relieved he hung up and reset their relationship in his head. Swept the day before under the carpet, made a fresh start.

Now he sat with his head in his hands. It hadn’t been that simple. Why he ever thought it would be that simple he didn’t know. Jenna had made it pretty clear why things had to go back to how they were before and he’d listened and agreed. Now her words echoed in his mind overlaying each picture of his misdemeanours from the _Victoria_ Wrap party.

‘We don’t get to be together,’ she had said on the phone, in a tone that had almost had him in tears it was so heartfelt, ‘You have Elaine, and now I have Tom, or will do when I let him back in the house, but that’s how it has to be. You and I just don’t get a chance. Too many people get hurt, including us if we keep doing this thing, whatever it is. It isn’t meant to be…’

He thought he had accepted that.

He’d travelled to Beverley, a week on, and arrived in the little village-town where Jenna had been living on and off while she filmed. It was a charming and friendly place and he’d checked into a traditional B&B hotel with a cosy bar and restaurant downstairs and old fashioned rooms above. Jenna was staying elsewhere, in the accommodation provided by ITV. Peter could not be tempted if she wasn’t even there and his room couldn’t look less like a love next, decorated as it was with traditional chenille bedspreads and ceramic ducks on the walls. All well and good.

Separate jobs. Separate rooms. Separate lives. They had it all agreed as they walked across the pretty square to join the party at another pub. They were grown up and sensible and last week had been a mistake and they wouldn’t refer to it again. They had a couple of drinks and the excited crew took their selfies and everyone seem to be getting on fine.

Until Tom arrived late with two of Jenna’s co-stars, or former ladies in waiting. Jenna spotted him instantly and her face lit up, big smile, sparkling eyes, jumping up to greet him more affectionately than Peter had expected while he was sitting next to her, but hadn’t they just agreed, this was how it had to be? Wasn’t that man her boyfriend?

It felt wrong. During the time he had known Jenna she’d only had on off love interests, she dabbled but never committed. She certainly didn’t move them into her home. And each time some little fling ended she would come back to Peter, tell him all about it, laugh or cry and affirm without words that really he was the one man who was always there for her, who she always turned to.

Now she was hanging off Tom’s neck and laughing. And he knew she went home to him too these days. Slept next to him each night. That man got to curl himself around her while he dreamed and woke her with kisses on a Sunday morning and…

Peter’s jealousy surged through him with a force he hadn’t felt in years. He absolutely saw red and every muscle in his body seemed to tighten. He could feel his teeth grinding together as Tom let go of Jenna again and then leaned down to kiss her hello. Peter knew it was none of his business now what Jenna did with this man, but he couldn’t help but feel it was cruel to have to sit through a private show. He was about to stand and walk out, into the fresh night to try and calm down when Jenna caught his eye. He must have looked fairly murderous because he registered the shock in her face, a look of absolute horror. If there was a look he could do well, it was murderous.

‘Peter?’ she asked alarmed?

He couldn’t talk, his throat was too constricted so he stood quickly and left as he had intended, taking his drink with him and ending up a dozen yards down from the pub door leaning against the wall, a narrow alleyway in shadow beside him. He down half his glass and tried to calm down.

Idiot. Idiot. What did you think would happen? She’s not going to be a nun.

But so quickly? The jealousy that was raging was starting to bubble down and leave pain behind. He swallowed the rest of his wine and considered going back to the B&B.

Peter glanced down towards the pub door and sure enough saw a little brunette standing there. She looked lost, guilty, unsure what to say, unsure of she should speak with him or if he would just erupt in anger. He rarely ever did, he didn’t think Jenna had ever even seen him angry, but the way he felt right now. No, he would go, he had no place here anymore, he was just a sad old man who fantasised there was something special with his old co-star. Well she’d moved on, and quite right too, she wasn’t there to fuel his midlife crisis.

He pushed off the wall and put his empty glass on a window ledge, looked in briefly.

Tom, centre of attention, women all around him, the heartthrob. And in a moment Jenna would be in there too. Would he flirt with the others while she was there or did he only do this behind her back? Maybe she admired how attractive others found him. Big deal, he was a handsome young man, but there was an awful lot more to attraction. Chemistry, intellect, common ground. Peter and Jenna had clicked when they first met, had a bond he had thought was unshakable.

He was damned if he’d let that bond break now because of last week, because of her new boyfriend, because of any of it.

He walked quickly back down to the pub door, holding Jenna’s eye as he did. As he reached her she went to say something, holding out one hand to stop him, but he still didn’t quite trust his tongue. Peter swept past her and into the pub. He went straight to the bar where Tom was holding court..

 

Perched still on the pink chenille he had a terrible feeling the memories would just get worse as they came back to him. A feeling that he should try and get it out of the way, rip it off like a plaster. He looked up at Jenna who was still fiercely glowering down at him.

‘I got really drunk didn’t I?’ he started and she nodded. ‘I remember storming out in a jealous fit and then… storming back in again.’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘And then you drank some more, hung out with the crew and blatantly competed with Tom for coolest lead actor award. For a while you were winning too, they liked you, thought you were funny…’

‘And then?’

‘And then you started acting like an arse. A complete arse. A _pissed_ complete arse.’

‘What did I do?’ he asked softly.

‘Flirted with my ladies in waiting for one; I think it was some alpha male thing to prove you could bag more women than Tom. I’ve never seen you do that, treat women that way.’

‘Oh god, what way? Was I awful?’

He watched Jenna sigh, ‘I want to say yes you were terrible but they did seem to be enjoying your company, you can be very charming, but the point is you were doing it deliberately to get at Tom, to prove you were better at bagging the girls which is so out of character for you and that’s pathetic.’

‘I agree.’

There was a pause, ‘What then?’ he asked.

‘Karaoke?’

‘You are kidding me,’ he groaned, ‘What was I thinking?’

‘Space Oddity, and Starman…. Those were two things you were thinking.’

‘At least they were good songs.’

‘It was like some pathetic sing off between you! It was the bloody X Factor gone wrong.’

‘He was singing too?’

‘Yes… but modern stuff, you know things from _this_ century.’

‘There is nothing wrong with _last_ century,’ he said. ‘Who won?’ he added curiously.

‘it wasn’t an actual competition…’

‘But was he any good because…’

‘Peter!’

‘Sorry.’

‘You got on the tables at one point…’

‘Oh Christ,’ he hid his face in his hands again.

‘I’d like to say that was the worst of it but apart from singing, dancing on the tables and chatting up my friends you out did yourself when you squared up to Tom and asked him outside.’

Peter looked up shocked. ‘I did _what_?’

‘I swear. Took off your jacket, rolled up your sleeves and asked him to come outside because you didn’t like the way he was using me to better his career. Said he was faking the whole thing so he could get into the gossip columns and people would actually remember his forgettable presence. Your words.  A tirade of them to be accurate. You were so embarrassing and interfering and…. You just made me so angry and humiliated.’

Peter’s stomach flipped. ‘Oh god, I said that? I said that about his intentions and his career? I called him to fight? What was I thinking he’s half my age he’d kill me?’

‘Not according to you at the time he wouldn’t you were pretty cocky about it all.’

He stared in disbelief at her. ’What the hell was I drinking to make me like this? I don’t do aggressive, I’m a wimp. There’s no way I’d start a fight.’

‘Well you did.’

‘Did we actually come to blows?’

‘No, I dragged you away, brought you back here where you ranted at me for twenty minutes about how you’d ‘give him a doing,’  before passing out fully clothed. Which I hope was hot and uncomfortable because you deserve it.’

‘Yes,’ he confirmed, ‘Yes I do.’ Peter sat staring at the floor. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said meekly. ‘I guess I just… I’m finding this harder than I thought.’

‘Well you’re not making it much easier for me,’ she snapped. ‘What with being a jealous monster in public and threatening my boyfriend. It’ll be in the papers….’

‘Yes it will…. Probably what he wants. He _does_ use you to make himself look better, more important,’ Peter said quietly, ‘Just like Richard. I hate it, you just seem to get involved with that sort and then they take advantage…’

There was a long pause. Eventually he looked up at her, still in the same position, arms folded around her, watching him as though trying to figure him out.

‘I know,’ she said at last.

‘You know?’

‘Yes, it’s been more and more obvious,’ Jenna uncrossed her arms and sat next to him. ‘He doesn’t love me, not really, but it makes a great story and he gets to share my limelight. You should have seen how happy he looked when we both got papped the other week. I was hacked off and he was showing his friends the magazine.’

‘Arse,’ Peter grumbled.

‘Excited by this new stage in his career,’ Jenna said, ‘And nice enough when you get to know him, but not boyfriend material after all it seems.’

‘Did my calling him out help you realise this?’ Peter asked hopefully.

Jenna laughed, her anger dissipating a bit. ‘You didn’t call him out I made that up.’

Peter stared at her.

‘But the fact you believed me says a lot,’ she smiled, ‘You’ve obviously thought about it. I never knew you had it in you to get all…. Possessive like that.’

Peter felt himself flush. ‘Yes well, now you do. And I think the word is pathetically jealous.’

‘That’s two words.’

He slumped forward where he sat and rubbed his face. ‘This has been a disaster. Your friends think I’m a pervert, your crew think I’m a drunk, and you… God knows what you think of me…’

‘Do you want me to answer that?’ Jenna asked.

‘Not really,’ he said despondently.

‘I’m going to anyway.’

‘Great, stick the knife in.’

Jenna smiled sadly. ‘I think…’ she took a deep breath, ‘I think that you are probably the One,’

Peter looked at her sharply. ‘What…?’ Jenna held up her hand. ‘The one I couldn’t have,’ she clarified. ‘The one I have to let go of.’

Peter watched her bite back her tears for a moment.

‘We never had a chance did we?’ he said quietly, ‘Wrong time, wrong place, wrong everything.’

‘Not everything,’ She said, ‘We still have this morning? A few hours before checkout, not much but…’

He had sworn he wouldn’t. He had promised himself and Jenna they would never do this again, but there was something so vulnerable in her then, in himself, that there was no refusal. It was full circle somehow and they both needed it or they would never move on, they’d be forever trapped waiting for one another while the world forced them in opposite directions.

Peter kissed her and she melted under him as he laid her back on the bed. The clothes he had slept in, crinkled and hot, were peeled away from his skin, leaving painful red marks where his belt had dug in overnight, or a shirt sleeve and pulled tight against his arm. Jenna kissed each mark and rolled him onto his back, quickly removing her own clothes until she was naked against him.

This was the last time this would happen, he felt that now in a way he hadn’t felt the first time. Then he had idly fantasised about the next encounter, even when they had called that side of things off he still felt like he was waiting. Now he could just sense that this was final, so he watched each move, each muscle, each shadow, as she lowered herself over him and placed her hands to either side of his face. Jenna leaned down and kissed him deeply and he memorised the taste.

There was so much he wanted to do and he was forced to have one eye on the clock. As she worked herself up to her climax he rolled her round again onto her back and pulled away so that he might cover her with his touch, kiss down her body and bring her pleasure that way until she was close enough to beg and he could switch again.

This time on her knees before him, he took her more forcefully but by now she was open and wet and needy,  able to accommodate anything he gave, grinding back onto him with her breath was coming fast and she was clawing at the sheets. He reached around to touch her, brought her close again until she was whimpering under him.

But Jenna was not to be tormented alone. She pushed off him and spun around to face him, kissed him deep, quickly secured her prize as she wrapped her hand around him and bent to take him in her mouth. His balance went at the intensity of her hot tongue sliding over the tip of him and he braced himself against her shoulders, panting, keening, his arousal rushing too quickly until he begged her to stop.

She met his eye then, her pupils blown like his, a sheen of sweat on her top lip which was swollen with kissing and more. She chewed at its companion and he knew what was running through her mind. She wanted this, but she didn’t want it to end. Peter watched as Jenna glanced at the clock. An hour until check out.

He took her hand and it was as though she folded under him, as though their bodies took the decision before their minds and led them on. His fingers slotted through hers, he entered her again and this time was overwhelmed by something more than sheer physical sensation. He could feel the fingertips of her free hand knotting the curls at the nape of his neck, gel free, darker than the rest of his hair, reminiscent of youth. That seemed appropriate somehow as he said goodbye to her and what could have been; had been thirty years younger, had she been born thirty years before.

The sensation rose quickly between both of them urged on by time and raw emotion. Peter began with his eyes closed, his face buried but she slowly drew him out of hiding and stroked his chin, his cheeks as she watched him. Usually so self-conscious he was surprised to feel himself relax under her gaze, certain that during that moment she and he and the bubble they existed in was good and right and theirs always.

When his release came with hers he held her eye for as long as he could. Watched his love reflected in her pupils.

 

Jenna took a shower before she left, while he packed his bag for the journey back to London. When she wandered into the room again he saw her wrapped in towels, large white fluffy ones much as she had been when she had visited wales.  But the mood now was more sombre and no longer spoke of future plans. It made his heart twinge to see the end mirror the beginning; the pretty gift she had allowed him to unwrap, wrapped up again forever.


End file.
